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Disco devo­tees know that one of the key appeals of this genre is its wild unpre­dictabil­ity.  Those who shrug it off as a repet­i­tive, for­mu­laic music have obvi­ously not looked beyond the top-40 hits to explore its extremes, which are many and mind-bending.  The rea­son for this is sim­ple: D.J.‘s and dis­cothèque patrons alike expected a steady and diverse stream of prod­uct to suit their endless-grooving needs and this led pro­duc­ers to try an end­lessly array of styles and genre-blending exper­i­ments to keep up with the demand.

As a result, there’s a breath­tak­ing amount of styl­is­tic diver­sity hov­er­ing above that thud-thud-thud beat every­one asso­ciates with disco.  If you want to get an idea of how far its genre-blurring bor­ders extend, the recent Disco Discharge: Mondo Disco pro­vides a nice thumb­nail sketch of all the mad scientist-style exper­i­men­ta­tion that was going on at the time.  This two disc set amasses a series of 12-inch mixes and full-length album ver­sions that cover a head-spinning array of styles under the disco ban­ner.  In the process, it gives you a sense of the bound­less pos­si­bil­i­ties that were being thrown around like party favors dur­ing the genre’s heyday.

Disc one favors Eurodisco sounds, with a cou­ple of U.S.-style tracks thrown in for vari­ety.  Patrick Juvet’s per­co­lat­ing, helium-voiced “Got A Feeling” starts things on a high-camp note and from there the disc jumps from coun­try to coun­try and style to style with total aban­don: Gepy & Gepy mix lounge lizard bal­ladry with perky electro-rhythms on “Body To Body,” Who’s Who take us on a sitar-tinged Eastern disco odyssey with “Hypnodance” and Supermax deliver what could be termed ‘tribal-prog-disco” with the deliri­ously bizarre “African Blood.”  Other killers on this disc include a lav­ish Philly disco treat­ment of “Bourgie Bourgie” by John Davis & The Monster Orchestra and the pop-mysticism of Boney M’s “He Was A Steppenwolf,” a good exam­ple of the sur­pris­ingly exper­i­men­tal non-single fare tucked away on their albums.

Disc two main­tains the eclec­tic bill of fare estab­lished on the first disc.  Technique’s “(Looking For Someone To Love) Tonight” starts things off beau­ti­fully, a lush slab of midtempo “sleaze disco” with pillow-talk vocals and a sleepy-eyed roman­tic mood.  From there, the disc cov­ers a lot of dif­fer­ent ter­ri­tory.  For instance, Passengers’ “The Last Romantic” and Liquid Gold’s “My Baby’s Baby” rep­re­sent Eurodisco at its boun­ci­est, most bub­blegum extreme.  Elsewhere, a rare instru­men­tal ver­sion of Voyage’s “Souvenirs” and Azoto’s “San Salvador” show off the soar­ing, exotica-crazed end of the sound and Disco Circus’ “Over And Over” brings elec­tron­ica and prog-rock touches into he mix.

And the afore­men­tioned high­lights aren’t the only ones on Mondo Disco.  In fact, the most rev­e­la­tory track on the entire set might come from old-time crooner Andy Williams: his 1979 redux of his old favorite, the vocal ver­sion of the theme from Love Story,  is no mere disco cash-in.  In fact, it takes the genre to its most over-the-top lim­its, with pro­ducer Bob Esty pil­ing on orches­tra­tion and boom­ing bursts of tym­pani as Williams gives his oper­atic all to sell the tragic sto­ry­line.  It’s exactly the kind of under­ground cult fave this series was designed to unearth and the major dis­cov­ery on this set.

In short, Disco Discharge: Mondo Disco is another strong entry in this reli­able series and a great illus­tra­tion of disco’s inher­ent diver­sity.  If you’re in the mar­ket for a good new disco comp, this one will do you right and take you many dif­fer­ent places in the bargain.